


I'm Really Just A Kid

by RobinsonsWereHere



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Childhood Trauma, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, F/M, High school Jules, Maryanne isn't a great mom, Neglectful Parenting, Older Man/Younger Woman, Panic Attacks, Pre-Canon, Sexual Harassment, hardcore angst, no explicit content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26144548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinsonsWereHere/pseuds/RobinsonsWereHere
Summary: Juliet O'Hara knows her mom has bad taste in men. She's known that since the age of eleven. Maryanne dates criminals and freeloaders, and with all her brothers grown up and moved out, Juliet has to bear it by herself.At first glance, the new guy is disgusting and immoral like all the others. A drunkard. A pickpocket. A low-life.Juliet soon learns he's much, much worse.
Relationships: Juliet O'Hara & Maryanne O'Hara, Juliet O'Hara/Original Male Character(s) (one-sided), Maryanne O'Hara/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12
Collections: 3 Psychos Do BTHB, Bad Things Happen Bingo





	I'm Really Just A Kid

**Author's Note:**

> I came up with this idea in the middle of the night last night after watching 7x04, when Juliet rattles off the lit of Maryanne's criminal boyfriends. When I woke up this morning and realized I had a BTHB prompt that fit I decided to go for it! WARNING: dark themes ahead.

Fifteen-year-old Juliet O’Hara does not like her mother’s latest boyfriend.

Al is, in the simplest terms, disgusting.

The man clearly does not know what deodorant is, and she’s not sure he’s ever seen a shower. She’s caught him flipping through her mom’s wallet more than once, though he always gives her a sleazy smirk and an excuse about grocery money.

And he drinks. Maryanne says that many men enjoy a drink with or after dinner. She says it’s normal. She says it’s not a big deal.

Juliet asks her who she thinks she’s kidding, and gets grounded for a weekend.

She doesn’t voice her concerns after that.

When the school year starts, she’s relieved. She studies hard, works at cheer practice, goes to study groups with her teammates and sometimes has dinner at their house, if she can get away with it. Although not all of her team members are super friendly, she’s close with the ones who are. Close enough that there’s an unspoken agreement that sleepovers never happen at her house, and nobody bugs her about it.

(She brings the popcorn every time, anyway.)

As the youngest in her family, she’s had looser rules for as long as she can remember. That had used to irritate her brothers to no end, but now they’ve all moved out. Grown up.

Juliet envies them.

The point is, while Maryanne asks for a general idea of her whereabouts, there’s nowhere Juliet can’t go, really. And her curfew is nonexistent. Honestly, it’s not something she really takes advantage of, save for game nights.

Every home game, for every sport, for every season, the cheer squad is there. They’re allowed to miss three games per season, but Juliet never misses one.

Football starts first. Juliet’s favorites are honestly basketball or maybe soccer, but she can appreciate the festive atmosphere of a football game. Everyone in orange and gold, pop radio playing from the speakers, spectators screaming and football players chasing each other up and down the field. Hey, not to be cheerleader cliche, but football players do tend to look damn good in their uniforms.

Rarely does a game end before ten, though eleven is more likely. In short, she’s getting home between midnight and two in the morning on game nights. That’s another good thing about football-- their games are on Fridays.

Her mom is always fast asleep. Al is passed out, too. The one boundary Maryanne does set for Al is making him sleep on the couch when he’s wasted, which is… always. Juliet never even bothers trying not to wake him-- he sleeps like the dead, and nothing short of a meteor strike could ever get him up before eleven in the morning.

Which is why she hardly even believes what’s happening, the night he’s awake.

Juliet comes through the living room to get to her bedroom; there’s no other way through the house. She walks right past the couch without even thinking about it.

Until the night she feels a clammy hand grip her thigh.

She makes a strange shrieking noise, though she instinctively stifles it with a hand over her mouth. The foreign hand on her thigh moves further under her skirt to squeeze her butt, and she hears a dark chuckle from the definitely-not-sleeping lump on the couch.

Forgetting how to breathe, Juliet pulls herself free and runs for her bedroom.

\---

The next morning, Juliet feels like a mess. 

She wakes at ten am from a dead sleep, but she’s sure that’s only been like three hours. After all, the last nightmare had woken her to dawn tinting the sky and birds chirping outside.

It had taken her an hour to remember how to breathe, after she’d fled to her room and locked the door. She’d hugged her knees to her chest and ducked her face down as the world had spun around her. She hadn’t slept for a long time, and when she finally did, Al had followed her into her dreams.

Memories of hands all over her drive her to the shower. As the scalding water runs over her skin, she forces herself to think back to the previous night.

_What was real? What was a dream? Did any of it really happen?_

In the light of day, she’s not sure.

Al is always passed out, always in a drunken coma when she gets home. Why would last night have been different?

She knows she had nightmares all last night… could the hand up her skirt have been a dream, too?

Juliet thinks back to when she’d told her mom about the pickpocketing, asked her if she was sure the drinking was okay.

That hadn’t gone well.

She lathers shampoo in her hair and takes deep breaths of the steamy air.

It’s no use going to her mom with this, not when she’s not sure it even happened.

She’ll just pretend it didn’t, and move on.

It’ll be fine.

\---

For a few weeks, Juliet is able to assure herself she had imagined that night. Four more games happen, and though she tiptoes carefully through the living room now when she gets home, Al is fast asleep.

Even the nightmares fade a bit.

On this particular night she hasn’t exactly let her guard down, she still intends to move carefully and quietly, but she’s gotten past the choking fear that the man on the couch will wake up.

The rough voice drifting through the darkness brings that fear right back.

“C’mere, pretty,” Al slurs. “Lemme get my hands on you again. So sexy.”

Juliet tries to take a breath. It doesn’t work.

“Al, you’re drunk. Go back to sleep,” she tells him. “I’m not my mom.”

“Oh, I know,” he rumbles, and though he reeks of alcohol, he sounds worryingly lucid. “Your mother doesn’t wear skirts like you do.”

His disgusting comments fall on deaf ears as Juliet closes her eyes, leaning against the wall for support. _No, not again. Why is this happening to me?_

“C’mon, let’s have some fun,” Al says with a snicker. Juliet holds back a cry of distress and runs for her bedroom.

Thank god she’s not close enough for him to touch.

She locks the door, pulls her clothes off like they burn, and tugs on an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants. Then, she climbs into bed and buries herself under the blankets.

The heat is stifling, but she needs to feel protected, shielded, safe. She tries to take deep breaths but chokes on her own tears. It’s too hot under the blankets. She can’t breathe. She can’t breathe. She can’t--

Juliet kicks the blankets off, pulling herself back into a sitting position. Her ragged breaths turn to sobs. 

_Why is this happening to me?_

\---

She still doesn’t tell her mother. She couldn’t explain why… it’s almost like she’s trying to keep it all to herself, to tamp down those horrible nights and force them out of existence. If she doesn’t let them exist, they won’t exist.

Except, they do. It all keeps happening, almost every night she comes home late. Juliet gets the sense Al is waiting for her. The dread makes her sick to her stomach.

She’s stopped engaging with him, just staying as far away as possible as he tells her how he dreams of having her naked and helpless underneath him. When she’s safe in her bedroom with the door locked behind her, hot tears stream down her face as she stares at the ceiling and begs the universe for an answer. 

_Why me? Why is he doing this to me? Why am I too scared to tell someone?_

_What happens when he grabs me again and I can’t fight him off?_

She dreams of the answer to the last one.

\---

Juliet’s sixteenth birthday has her feeling happier than she has in a while. It falls on a Sunday, and her plans are to go out with her friends and go shopping, maybe see a movie, and then come home for cake and presents. Her mother is in the kitchen baking the cake as Juliet gets ready to go out.

She’s got a bright yellow sundress with a floral print. It was a birthday gift from the previous year, and it’s one of her favorites. Dropping a lip gloss and a mascara into her purse, she bends down to lace up her sneakers.

She doesn’t realize Al is in the room until she feels a hand smack her butt. She squeaks and jerks upright, dismayed to get a hand gripping her wrist and a disgustingly warm body pressed against hers.

“I can’t wait for you to get home,” he whispers in her ear. “You’ve got such a pretty dress on… I can’t wait to take it off. Maybe I’ll let you eat something more than cake for your birthday.”

It’s that mental image that gives Juliet the strength to pull away. He’s never done anything like this in daylight before. She might have expected to have more strength, maybe even a comeback.

All she has is bile rising in her throat. His touch literally makes her want to vomit. 

She’s wearing jeans and a baggy t-shirt by the time she goes out with her friends.

\---

Normally, Juliet tries to stay away from home for as long as possible, these days. But this afternoon, she’s just… tired.

She tosses her bag into a chair in her bedroom and pulls her hair loose from the ponytail. She doesn’t even bother closing her door.

“Juliet?” Maryanne pokes her head in the doorway, looking concerned at the sight of her daughter burying her face in her pillows. “Are you alright, dear?”

Juliet swallows the lump in her throat. “Fine, Mom. Just PMS.” By now, this all feels like a secret she’ll take to her grave.

“Well, I’ll bring you some cocoa,” Maryanne decides.

Exhausted from lack of sleep, Juliet falls asleep before the sun has even fully set that night. She’s fully clothed; her sneakered feet hang off the foot of her bed. She’s drooling onto her pillow and lying totally on top of her mussed blankets.

The door is still open.

When she wakes, it’s dark. Moonlight filters through her thin curtains. She’s confused by the fog of sleep until she feels a weight settle on her bed.

_Oh, no._

A warm body presses over her, breath that reeks of alcohol tickling the back of her neck. She tries to move, to struggle. It’s no use.

She knows what’s going to happen now.

As Al tries to kiss her, as his hands roam over her body, she curls up into the fetal position, her last defense. Her only reassurance is that he’s absolutely wasted, and it doesn’t seem like he has much control over his limbs. He tries to tug her apart, but she resists.

Her sobs come openly now. She might be begging aloud for this to stop. She can’t even tell anymore.

Part of her wants to stop resisting and get it over with.

Her fingers unlink. Her arms loosen. She’s about to give in when the door opens.

“Juliet?” Maryanne calls, softly at first. The next thing Juliet hears is a gasp, and then a scream.

She doesn’t remember her mom pulling Al away. She doesn’t remember the doors slamming or her mother’s shrill voice cursing the man she’d said she loved. She doesn’t remember anything until Maryanne returns, beginning to rub Juliet’s back slowly.

Juliet jerks away from the touch, pushing herself up with shaking arms.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Maryanne whispers.

The tears return, then. Juliet curls in on herself and sobs.

“I’m so sorry,” her mother murmurs, reaching out. “What can I do to help? Did he-- did he _do_ anything?”

Juliet tries to shake her head, but then, that’s not fully true.

“He--” she gasps for air. “It’s been-- _months,_ Mom. He won’t leave me alone.”

Maryanne looks stricken. “What-- what do you mean? Why didn’t you say anything?”

Juliet shakes her head hopelessly. “It’s always late… when you’re already asleep… he _touches_ me, he says things… I didn’t want to tell anyone. I didn’t want it to be real.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Maryanne whispers, her voice breaking. “Tell me how I can help… do you want me to stay with you? Rub your back, maybe?”

Juliet doubts she’ll ever sleep again. “I… can I take a bath?”

Maryanne nods quickly. “I’ll give you some of my bath salts.”

In the warm, soapy water, Juliet takes a loofah and scrubs herself all over, squirting almost an entire bottle of coconut-honey body wash onto the sponge over and over. She washes until her skin is red and she can no longer feel hands all over her or smell stale breath and alcohol. Behind her, Maryanne washes her hair, then rinses it, and combs it out, even when Juliet doesn’t leave the tub.

“You should eat something, honey,” Maryanne suggests.

Juliet shakes her head. “I’m not hungry.”

“Well,” her mother sighs, “how about this. You dry off and get in clean pajamas. I’ll bring you some chamomile. Then you can get some sleep, and eat something in the morning.”

She takes a deep, shaky breath. “Can I sleep in your bed?” She’s not sure she’ll ever want to go back to her bedroom again.

“Of course.” Maryanne presses a kiss to her forehead. “Here’s a towel… are you alright if I go make tea?”

“Yeah.” 

Twenty minutes later, Juliet sits in her mother’s bed, sipping the warm tea. She thought she might never sleep again, but even now she can feel the pull of sleep on her eyelids. She sets aside the half-finished cup and nestles further into the soft blankets.

“Can you stay?” she asks her mom. 

“Of course,” Maryanne promises, stroking her hair. “Try to get some rest. Things will be better in the morning.”

Juliet feels tears prick at the back of her eyes. “I don’t think so…”

“They will,” her mother promises. “He’s never coming back here, Juliet. I won’t let him hurt you again. I’m so sorry I didn’t notice.” Her voice is quiet, like she’s near tears.

“How long will it be until I can stop thinking about it?” Juliet asks. “How long until I can wear my cheerleading uniform without it feeling dirty? How long until I feel safe in my own bed?”

They’re both crying now, and Maryanne reaches out to squeeze her hand. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry.”

Juliet feels positively sick. She just wants to go to bed. But also… there’s a niggling sense of relief, one that might get bigger when she has more energy for it.

Al is gone. She’s safe now. Really, truly safe.

“He’s never coming back?” she whispers.

“Not in a million years.”

“Will you please… be more careful? Next time?”

“Of course,” Maryanne promises.

Juliet lets her eyes close. “I’m tired, Mom.”

“Get some sleep,” Maryanne insists. “I’m right here. I’ll stay right here.”

It’s been a long time since she’s let her guard down enough to really rest.

But tonight, Juliet does.

She lets go of her shields, tries to turn off her brain. She curls into a ball and hopes she really will feel better in the morning.

Al is gone. That should be a good thing.

But all Juliet can think of right now is how much she wants this all to be a bad dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I love to see comments and kudos, and you can find me on tumblr at bijulesspencerohara !


End file.
